Loss or theft of utilities is a problem that many utility industries must face. For example, unscrupulous individuals will tamper with an electric meter by removing the meter and reinstalling it upside down (so that it decrements, rather than increments with utility usage), bypass the meter entirely, tamper with the meter to prevent it from incrementing (e.g. after opening a seal on the meter), cutting cables, and so forth.
If a theft or tamper is detected or suspected, the utility will send out a trained investigator to analyze the situation and, at times, pursue an appropriate course of action with an alleged thief/tamperer. However, utilities typically only have a few of these trained individuals, and often have no additional procedures to readily identify suspected thefts or meter tamperings and deal with such problems.
Utilities lose some amount of their commodity because of consumer theft, and in many case set up entire departments to deal with these concerns. Despite expending large amounts of resources on deterring theft, it has not been easy to deter theft in a proactive manner. Utilities would greatly benefit if they were able to receive irrefutable evidence that documents the occurrence of the theft of utilities. However, conventional systems do not provide such capabilities, as many merely rely on individual tamper flags when attempting to resolve theft situations. These and other problems exist with respect to preventing the loss of utilities due to theft.